Polar Opposites
by Firefly Knights
Summary: or New beginnings. A stray Nobody finds a strange crystal object in a strange new landscape. This small event soon leads to the greatest of wars the universe has seen in ten years. 75% OC cast. T for language and battle scenes.
1. Grief

Long warning label...I know.

Disclaimer: I do not own the structure of the Kingdom Hearts universe. I am only borrowing and using to create a story. All original characters belong to their respective creators.

Welcome to the universe of this Kingdom Hearts Spin-off. This fiction is centered entirely around a vast cast of OCs, in the universe of Kingdoms Hearts, ten years or so after the events of Kingdom Hearts II. The original characters of KH make brief appearances or are spirits of the already fallen. Worlds visited and not visited in the Kingdom Hearts series will be explored, adding a little spice to the already quite good mix that is the Kingdom Hearts series.

Before I begin, I would like to speak to you, my readers. It has taken me a long time to finally decide to put this up on the site. This universe was mostly created by a group of KH fans at my school, which I had to unfortunately leave almost a year ago. It began as a joke as we redid our names with Xs to make Organization XIII names, but it blew up into this odd little thing that flickers on the screen before you. May at this school have dontated their characters to this story. Some are my friends with their mixed up name, others are RP characters that they created, others are even characters they created solely to help this story grow as it has. I love each and every one of them as my children, as well as reminders of all the great friends back home. I, as well as the friends at school, have gushed our love, feelings, talent, and time into these characters. I sincerly hope that everyone will love them, or at least not hate them.

And now, those of you who thought, "Aww...That's so sweet. An author's love for her characters," then I'm sure that we can all get along fine. And to those of you who don't think so, then you can read it if you want, but please don't make yourself read something you don't want to.

Enjoy.

* * *

Cycle, cycle, cycle

Where was she?

A girl stood up in the middle of literal nowhere. The sky looked like it was just before night really fell, when the sun still had a small bit of influence on the world. Twilight, it was called. Dusk, more specifically. There were destroyed buildings dotting the landscape. It seemed that they used to be architectural miracles, towering and stretching their black crystal fingers towards the sky, certainly. Their destroyed bases were shiny black shards now. She seemed to be standing in some sort of central square. She looked around trying to know where she was.

All she could remember of before was being a fruit and pastry peddler in Radiant Garden. She was happy, and she tended to get in trouble when she gave out apples to the little gutter children. She lived every day the same old way that a humble citizen might. Then the weird black things attacked. After that, all she could remember was years of just sitting in black nothing. How did she get out of there again?

She didn't really have time to think. A strange glow caught her attention. She followed it. She walked around a corner, into an alley, then straight through, turned and continued a long and winding search as the glow escaped her. She was being lead somewhere. Her mind was weakened from the long time in the darkness and didn't think that it might have been a trap. A really dumb trap to get caught in.

The glow stopped and dropped to the ground. The radiating weakened and she could see what it was. It was something resembling the crystal ball that fortune tellers use to seek the future. Her naïve, weakened mind told her to pick it up. When she did, she saw that her hand was not exactly as she remembered it before. She inspected it closer.

The crystal ball was about the size of a volleyball. In the center was a swirling mass of dark, smoke-like substance that curled and tumbled over itself restlessly. She shook the thing like a snowglobe. Strange markings that looked like an upside-down and spiky hearts swirl around, just below the surface. She was intrigued and stared harder at the shiny object. They swam lazily across as the smoky stuff continued to swirl and crash like waves below it. She felt tired. _Maybe I'm still sleepy._ She swaggered for a moment, and then fell into a deep sleep.

She got up again. This time, the city was in perfect shape. Tall, dark buildings surrounded her. In the distance, there was a large skyscraper with jumbled screens near the top. She squinted, but could see nothing depicted. The smell of city slum wafted about her, invading her nose that could not smell it. The sky was still in an eternal dusk. The globe was now stuck to her hand. She shook the hand experimentally, but it don't come off. She shrugged. Nothing was making sense at the moment, so it couldn't hurt to add another thing to the "Wow, that makes no sense" list.

A noise brought her out of her thoughts. Her head snapped up and saw something she did not expect. A person. The person was a hooded figure. It was dressed in a black robe with small trinkets at the collar. The person noticed her and began advancing towards her. She backed-up slightly, only to meet a wall to her back. She eyed him warily; maybe she could knock him out with the crystal ball if he came too close.

"It seems that you have found what remains of this world," said a rather low and deliberate voice.

She had only one answer for that, "What?"

"That object you hold is an archive of this world. All that is left of a once significant, yet insignificant world."

"What the heck are you talking about?" she asked in utter confusion.

"I have no time to explain such things."

The man suddenly advance quicker then before. The girl couldn't react before person was right in front of her. With one hand the person pulled down his hood, revealing a dark-skinned man with sliver-gray hair. With the other hand he pushed the crystal ball into her chest. She screamed out as the globe started melting into her, where her heart should be. There was a rather malicious glint in the man's eyes and he smiled in satisfaction.

"You are just like us," he stated, drawing back from her. She slid down the wall, clawing at the thing invading her body, "You are a Nobody, the shell of a being. You have no heart, and therefore do not truly _exist_."

That was a little too much for her to digest as there was a pain in her chest and memories she didn't know flooding suddenly into her mind. The man was in most of them. There was a strange heart-shaped moon in many of them as well. There was the castle and many hooded figures. They seemed to be talking to the man, but the girl could hear no words from them. They simply loomed there in their respective memories, reporting something, fighting, talking leisurely.

"In good time," continued the man, "you shall remember each member of the once infamous Organization XIII. You shall then gather a new group to take our place. I have read some of your memories, and your name has been reviled to me. Your name shall be-"

The girl woke up. The city was crumbled in ruin again. She got up slowly, pushing back dark strands of hair out of her eyes. It was a dream, and maybe this was a dream, too. She would wake up soon. Then she'd be back to selling fruit at a fruit stand. She looked around however, and the crystal was gone. Then, a lump that she could still feel in her chest began to move, and a new wave of unknown memories began flooding her mind. Maybe that dream wasn't just a dream. She looked around and noticed she was at a _huge_ drop-off that she had failed to notice before. Her new set of memories told her that it was once called "The Brink of Despair". The city was called "Dark City". The castle that was once there was called "The Castle That Never Was".

"Well that's a pleasant way of naming things," muttered the girl.

The girl took her hands and slowly raised them. A cold feeling shot straight down her spine all the way to her heels. Her eyes stole away from their usual dark blue and changed to an intense orange color.

"Organization Number I: Xemnas. The Superior," she said in her normal voice, "Henceforth the position shall be carried out by the new Number I: Mixeka. The Baker of-"

She broke off. What kind of name was…?

"The Baker of Love and Doom."

Mixeka blushed slightly at the ridiculous name. An oversized machine with crying skulls and smiling heart appeared in her left hand. It was a powered hand-held mixer, but the spinning parts were rather sharp and painful looking. She stumbled with it for a while, getting used to the weight. She had the strange feeling that she knew how to use it.

Meanwhile, her short chant seemed to have affected the world around her. Dark City began to rebuild itself around her. Fine black dust began condensing where they once were on the tall black buildings. The Skyscaper fluttered back into existence, (or non-existance,) along with the crashed truck wedged in the alley next to it. The Castle That Never Was regenerated itself in front of her. Considerably grayer than the other buildings in the City. A translucent path was created to it, and she stepped forward.

"_Mixeka," _the man finished shortly,_ "Your power is regeneration. It can be used to recover a building or heal a wound. Use it at your own will."_

Mixeka looked around inside the castle. She smiled. Gray walls, large halls, portal-like doors to rooms(, though the portal-doors needed fixing), and a great view of Dark City.

She could live with this.


	2. Humor

The Harpy Waits

"Get out of my head!"

Mixeka fell out of her makeshift bed. She sat up, brushing her bangs to one side, sighing softly to calm herself. She was sleeping on a large structure that had appeared near the middle of her new home. Alter of Naught was renamed the Endless Planetarium, since the first name was too sad and empty. The girl was still in the rags she had arrived in, and black grim was still smudged across her young features. However, she did look a bit healthier, and the gleam in her eyes was brighter than before. It seemed to be a whole lot better to be in Twilight nothing than Darkness nothing. Mixeka wasn't quite sure if there was a difference, but then again, it didn't matter too much to her.

The new Number I got up and put a hand to her "heart", the core of The World that Never Was. It pumped new memories into her head endlessly, filling her mind with something new all of the time. This man had a damp sort of a life, nothing changed, nothing happened, nothing was ever exciting. All of the thoughts were about Kingdom Hearts, some sort of other world where hearts went when they were stolen. (It also happened to be one and the same with the odd heart-shaped moon in the sky. As if _that_ made any sense.) It had engulfed his mind, and held his soul captive. Was she to do the same?

Hell no.

The girl nodded to herself. She picked herself from the gray tiling and walked over to a corner of the Planetarium. There she waved her hand like what she saw in one of the memories. A closet appeared before her eyes. In it she found a few coats. They were all the same, black with trinket like adjusters, in every way identical to the one that the man was wearing. She took one out slowly. It was much too long and rather heavy.

Unfazzled, she pulled the coat on over the rags that were left from her life before. She trapped herself inside using the zipper. She closed her eyes and thought for a moment. This is what happened in the dream; perhaps it will do the same.

Well it did, and it was creepy.

It slowly began to reshape. It was as if some highly skilled, invisible tailor was fitting the coat. The sleeves shrank smaller to fit her arms. The coat closed in to fit her scrawny, feminine body. The bottom portion became shorter, soon going only to the middle of her calves. It fit now, how confusing.

She soon had an entire set of clothes that fed her rather underfed frame. She changed out of her old clothes, into these new ones. She though it might get hot after a while, but the clothes were strangely breathable, even if they looked like the winter leathers that the high-end residents of Radiant Garden wore. She sighed and sat down in one of the structures at the edge. She would have to start the next thing she remembered from the weird dream.

She imagined a hat. That seemed easy. Then she molded it into a familiar shape, which turned out to be a sort of wool-knitted ski cap. She picked two colors: white and black. She painted the colors onto the ski cap, making the colors a bit interesting. Then she remembered her title: The Baker of Love and Doom. After a night, she noticed it was a pretty good name for her. In her past life, she probably would have enjoyed it. She created two symbols for herself. One was a laughing heart, representing the Love. The other was a crying skull, representing Doom. She pasted them onto the front of the hat, as if they were oversized badges. The image floated in her mind. Then, with her thought's power she grabbed at it and pulled it out.

The next thing she knew, she was holding the very thing she imagined in her hand. Amazing how non-existence worked. Non-existent things could create non-existent things. This was, of course, the perfect way to create clothing. She put the hat on over her black, bob-cut hair. She also created a pair of earrings, one of each of her new symbols.

Then, _he _spoke.

"_How are you this morning, Mixeka?_"

Mixeka yelped out loud as she fell forward onto the tile floor and felt the strange sense of deja-vu. The earrings were dropped and fell with two twin _ching_s onto the floor. She looked around expecting to see that man, Xemnas, again. He was nowhere to be seen. It suddenly dawned upon her.

"Are you in my head?"

A mental image of the man smirking floated near the top of her consciousness, "_Close. The fragments that are left of me have merged with your soul as a guide. This way, I in turn, half-exist within you._"

Mixeka only felt more confused then before, "That really helps,…err…should I call you sir?"

"_You do not need to talk out loud, young one,_" at this Mixeka covered her mouth. That probably looked really stupid, "_I can hear you in here._"

Mixeka nodded in half-understanding, and know thought to the voice instead of talking to it, "_So, what you're saying is, I'm going to have a voice in my head from now on? All the time?_"

The image grinned wickedly; Mixeka knew to take that as a yes.

* * *

"_Do you understand what you must do?_"

Mixeka nodded to the voice in her head for perhaps the tenth time that day. Her mental resident seemed to like giving orders. Xemnas seemed satisfied and left to the deeper parts of Mixeka's soul. The girl herself went over what she had been told.

"Let's see, visualize darkness being pulled out of the space in front of you…and _do it_."

She raised a hand level to her face and visualized. She saw the Darkness nothing she had been in before, and shaped it before her. After a few long, boring moments a tiny bit of black void appeared in front of her. She felt a waved of victory sweep over her as it grew. Larger and larger it became, until she was sure that she could fit through it.

"Do not fear the darkness. It shall repel you, because you are of the twilight. And after all, fear is something that you really cannot do."

She stepped in without hesitation. For a moment, she felt as if she were being taken apart, but painlessly. Slowly, she melted into the darkness. She saw, felt, tasted, smelt, heard nothing but darkness. Just black void, yet it was more existent then she was. Darkness was real, she was not.

* * *

The dark space spat her out in a place she had never seen before. Yet, it seemed familiar. Gray, now the most seen color by her, was everything. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, or were they any of those at all? The strange symbol of a spiky heart flew everywhere around for miles and miles. She remembered why it was familiar, the place had an uncanny resemblance to the achieve of the world in its physical form.

She looked around and spotted the only thing that wasn't gray. A single black dot. She walked towards it instinctively. The man began talking to her, again.

"_Mixeka, this is called Betwixt and Between. Almost everything that comes to our world passes through here at one time of another. It is a complete void of nothing._"

_Wow, how happy a place this must be,_ Mixeka thought sarcastically. Xemnas scoffed inside her soul. Her thoughts weren't safe anymore…

She walked for quite a while and slowly got closer to the black dot, which grew bigger. But that slowly was really, _really_ slow. Mixeka seemed to be walking for hours, without getting very far. Her legs grew tired. When she finally did reach what that black dot was, she thought that she would probably drop dead there.

The dot turned out to be a woman close up. Mixeka was busy panting as the woman stayed seated on the ground. They stayed just like that for a while. One sitting in complete silence, while the other (and also significantly shorter) one tried to catch her breath. The woman broke first to fix the black rimmed glasses that were slowly sliding down the bridge of her nose. Then, Mixeka spoke up.

"Where the heck did you get that coat!?"

The woman was wearing something identical to what Mixeka had. It was unnerving, just downright weird. She got it out of a wardrobe in the Castle that Never Was, but this woman had no excuse. Mixeka hop-skipped over so that she was in front of the woman, who looked up expressionless.

"Perhaps I was born with it," she said, still no emotion.

"Uhh…ok…" Mixeka, now knocked completely dumbfounded by the woman, fumbled for an answer, "Well, you must have something to do with everything, if you were…you know…"

The woman got up suddenly, startling Mixeka enough so that the slightly airy Nobody girl was forced to step back. She looked into Mixeka's freaked-out eyes through her glasses at extremely short range. At that point, something seemed to snap in Mixeka's core, causing an entire world of confusion.

Memories. Suddenly, they flooded out of nowhere. A long-haired man appeared in all of them, along with the man she had seen before, Xemnas. The other people in them were still hooded, unseen. She saw something else in them however, a young man. Spiky, brown hair paired with clear, blue eyes. He held a weapon in front of him that was shaped like a giant key. That was important, it had to be. She felt something when it appeared, an actual emotion…What was it called? The memory was soon covered up by others, however, and soon the girl was distracted again.

Pain, pain, pain. Her head felt ready to explode. Somehow, the memories seemed like too much. Clutching her head, she fell to her knees. She was too confused to scream. The woman watched her, expression still not changing. She was uninterested in this thing suffering on the groundless ground of the nothing space that they were in.

"_Mixeka,_" said the voice in her head, "_Mixeka, you must listen to me. Keeping three sets of memories in you is too much on your soul. You must transfer it to someone else. The only one compatible stands in front of you._"

Mixeka really didn't know how to transfer memories. So she did the thing that seemed sensible. Growling from the pain, she jumped out at the woman in front of her. The woman in return, jumped back, holding out her arm as a wall to separate them.

Mixeka suddenly felt herself in even more pain.

She had managed to grab a shoulder, but had met something quite unexpected. The arm that the woman had put out had apparently grown a weapon upon it. It had a graceful shape; like a long tonfa that extended unusually far from her elbow, but it had large spikes jutting out of it. Mixeka seemed to be impaled on them. Her blood splattered across the floor-like nothing beneath them.

But then, the pain in her head started to leave. There was strange feeling where the pain became cold. The cold traveled across her arm and slowly traveled up to her hand. From there, it disappeared. The woman, whoever she may be, must have started taking the memories in. There was a large lump of the coldness that traveled from the core to the woman, as well. Mixeka began to forget certain things that she had just seen. The only memories from that set that she remembered were the ones that had Xemnas in it.

After the transfer seemed to end, Mixeka fell back. Unconsciousness came across her quickly.

The new Number One awoke with a start. She was in the exact same place as before, except lying on her back. She stared at the endless space above for a moment, understanding that she was still alive. She raised herself on her elbows and looked around to see the woman again. This time, Mixeka noticed that two of the long tonfa were fitting on each of the silent woman's arms. The girl looked down. She was surprised to see her wound had been dressed. She looked back at the woman again in wonder.

"Why'd you…" she lost her words again for a moment, "Save me?"

The woman looked up. Her eyes were as emotionless as before,

"A voice told me."

"_Xigbar has done a wonderful job,_" said the man in her head. He seemed rather pleased with the results of this encounter.

Mixeka realized what was going on. She got up on unsteady legs, facing the woman with quiet courage,

"My name is Mixeka. I replace Xemnas."

"_Xemnas chose __**that**__? She's probably smaller then the Key kid. Whatever. Kiddo, this is your new leader,_" said the long haired man in the other woman's head, "_Introduce yourself…_"

"Xorlyanc, the Solemn Harpy. I replace Xigbar."

The two shook hands while in the Solemn Harpy's head, a certain trigger-happy man sniggered.

* * *

"How are you doing Xorlyanc?"

Mixeka was standing in front of a newly repaired portal door. She needed the Xigbar portions of Xemnas' memories to fix it, apparently. So it wasn't there until she had encountered Xorlyanc. The others would have to wait, she guessed, but for now the Wide Window Room was complete. It had been a few days since that part of the castle reappeared through the fresh leader's power of reconstruction, and it had quickly become Xorlyanc's personal domain. Mixeka wondered if she should go in and check on her herself, but that Xorlyanc was one really scary lady. Mixeka put a hand to her stomach area. Her wound was healing rapidly, thanks to the Nobodies' rapid recovery powers, as well as her own power from within. However, her powers of reconstruction work slower on her then on everything else. Not very useful…

Mixeka balanced a tray of sweet-smelling breads in the other hand. Apparently, even though she was now a Nobody with a weird guy living inside of her mind(or soul), she still knew how to bake stuff pretty well. At one point, Xemnas had told her that Nobodies didn't have hearts, but Mixeka thought that just trying to make the Solemn Harpy happy would help. At the time, Xemnas just scoffed at the nonsense.

"I brought you something, Xorlyanc!"

On the other side of the portal door, Xorlyanc was busy sorting out the items in the room.

'_Do you mind not doing that, Xorly?_' asked Xigbar from the inside of Xorlyanc's mind in a strangely irritable attitude, '_You have no idea how long it took for me to collect all that._'

Xorlyanc shrugged and spat out another mouthful of whatever it was. She wiped her mouth and threw the bottle over the edge of the window. (The window took up most of the wall, explaining the room's simple and blunt sort of name.) It fell, fell, fell then crashed to pieces on the ground below. Xigbar groaned.

Bottles of many types of drink had been restored along with Number II's section of castle. If there was anything remotely drinkable and drunkenness inducing from worlds that were unfathomable distances away, there was at least one bottle of it there. Xorlyanc was going through them, and throwing out the ones that didn't meet her taste. At that moment, none of them had yet, and the crater down below was covered with broken glass and thrown-out booze. Xigbar had reason to whine.

Xorlyanc slide down to the floor below the window frame, not really feeling like standing anymore. She tucked a blonde-ish lock behind her ear, and trailed it down. Her hair was far too long, but she saw no point in cutting it. She didn't exist after all. She reached for another bottle. Popping it open, she wondered why the heck she _was_ still existing. Actually, she didn't even know where the heck she was, either. That Mixeka said they were in The World That Never Was. That girl didn't help much when it came to informing people. She was uninformed of her own existence and home. Then again, so was Xorlyanc.

"Ugh…" groaned Xorlyanc in out-right disgust. She pulled the bottle away from her mouth and tried to read the label. It was written in some strange language, probably from some world that had beings without taste-buds. Nothing in this room was pleasant. She threw the bottle out too, earning another whine from her metal resident. She reached for another one, and uncorked it.

Meanwhile, Mixeka was still outside of the portal door, waiting for something to happen. She munched on one for her mini-cakes contemplatively. It was great that the Castle had a kitchen; the only old talent that she had left was cooking sweets. It had taken a while to clean, since the last residents obviously didn't care if there were exploded carrots and potato shards everywhere, but the kitchen still worked. Then, Mixeka had a bit of an epiphany.

"Oh man, Nobodies still need to eat!"

'_Indeed,_' said Xemnas slowly, as if trying to understand why she hadn't figured out the fact until now, '_Although we do not have hearts, we are complete in every other way. Our souls, bodies, and minds still need what they needed when we were whole._'

Mixeka grinned, "Then I'm sure Xorlyanc will appreciate this. Even just a little," she paused, "Right?"

She felt Xemnas scoff in her head again. She was used to it by now. Apparently, the dark-skinned man liked watching her act like an idiot. She couldn't really feel attached to his cold nature, but he became bearable after a while. And Mixeka was happy to find someone to talk to, nevermind the fact that she really couldn't be happy.

Just as Mixeka stood up, Xorlyanc walked out of the portal door with the only bottle of wine that she found drinkable so far. She stared at Number I for a few moments, scaring Mixeka a bit with her scary amber eyes again. Then, without warning, she snatched a small bread off of the tray and stalked off. Mixeka stared after her for a while, then stared at the tray, and back up at the steadily receding figure.

"Gosh, she's one scary Nobody…"

* * *

These are the two trail period chapters. Hope they're good enough for the community here...I actually haven't been here in a while due to my family being busy, so...We'll see.

Xorlyanc belongs to my closest friend. We had our collisions, but I know it only made our bond stronger than before. She owns many characters that are still to come...If I plan to upload any more of this...

Reviews will tell me if I should upload the next chapters, so if my story pleases you, then tell me.


	3. Courage

Thanks to my one reviewer so far: Mystica234

* * *

Pirates and Stormclouds

It was dark in the Castle's chapel. It was late at night, and even in a place called Radiant Garden, it was a time when light did not shine through the stained glass windows. The pews were empty, and the bible lay closed on the pulpit. The spider, finished with the repairs on their wispy little webs began to return to the center to snooze. Pigeons were already snoring in their soft rumble, roosting peacefully in the rafters. The air was still, that was…until…

The pigeons suddenly awoke in a flutter of wings. They shot up, colliding with one another, shrieking in panic as they rose to fly out of the space between the roof and the walls. The spider skittered up their webs, trying to keep their distance with the intruder.

A black-haired man strode into the room, followed closely by a little boy. As they did, a soft sizzling rumble followed. The man was tall, and dressed in a black cloak. The boy skipped slightly, and was wearing a shirt and shorts that seemed to be made of animal skins. His feet were bare, while the man's feet were booted. The boy looked up and smiled. His lips moved silently, mouthing words that not too many other humans understood. The spiders hesitated for a moment, but soon relaxed. The boy at least, was one of them, a creature of the common speech.

"Twofoot," said the man, who stopped in front of the pulpit.

"Yes, Leader?" said the boy, who was now calling the birds back to their roosts as well. He giggled, "You know, you always seem to scare them, I can't imagine why. You might glare and say mean things, but your heart's so nice."

"Are you finished?" the man asked, obviously exasperated.

The boy called back the last pigeon, "Sure, Leader."

"Then report, wolfchild."

The little boy grinned. His name was Tanner Twofoot, raised in the northern forest where a buck had defeated a pack of hunting dogs and had become king. The entire canine clan there had been disgraced, and Tanner had been taken from home. He was a chosen fighter, picked personally by Yen Sid. If he did everything right, Leader would grant his clan their rightful place at the top in the forest's system. Anyways, Leader was a good person deep down; it was just that the air around him zapped things out of existence.

"'The time has come.' That's what JaiJai said, anyways," said the boy, "The other half of the story has awaken and is already moving."

"Their numbers?"

"Still only two," said the boy, "But the first is already on the trail of the third."

* * *

"Yo ho, yo ho. A pirate's life for me!" sang James. He used the tune to get a towing rhythm as his hand worked at the lines.

The wind of the sea had made the young man's unruly, blonde hair crusted with salt. His clear blue eyes were always trained on the ever-changing waves of the Caribbean. Today, those blue eyes glimmered hopefully. They'd soon be ashore, and he would be reunited with his most recent lover. Anne was a girl with long red, hair. She was the loveliest so far of all of his loves. He tied the line to its rightful place. He looked at it, happy with his work. He then walked across the deck, still singing his fun and slightly violent song.

"We pillage and plunder, we rifle and loot, drink up me hearties, yo ho!"

"Ya really should stop singing that song, lad," said a tired voice in front of him. One of the deckhands was resting his chin on his hands, which in turn rested on the top end of his deck-mop. He eyed the boy warily with his left eye, closing his tired right one, "tain't the nicest of songs, ya know."

James grinned wickedly and gave nothing as an answer. Then in a flash, he jumped up a set of riggings. It was his turn in the crow's nest, and he wasn't about to let it past him. That was the best place to see everything. Clambering up he signaled to the guy on the post, who gladly traded places with him. As he climbed the deck became smaller and smaller while the sea spread wider and wider around. James practically leaped into the bad excuse for a bucket(, never mind a post for a human,) enthusiastically, taking in the sky It seemed so close from this summit of his home on the sea, that if he reached out to it, he could pluck a cloud out of the clear blue sea above him.

"We kidnap and plunder, and don't give a hoot," the kid popped his head over the edge and spotted something on the horizon that caused him to pause.

The black dot first looked like a piece of land, or something similar to that. Perhaps a reef, even. Then, it did something unexpected of a little dot of sand or stone. It got big at an alarming rate, much faster than your average island. The ship was traveling slowly anyways, so that couldn't possibly be right. As it got closer, James could see that it was…moving? Swarming may have been a better word. It seemed to be more than one object that moved and tumbled over itself. They were like particles of sand turning over and over again in a wave by the shore.

"…Drink up me hearties…yo ho?" James finished up his line and shouted downwards, "Approaching unusually body of land at starboard, extremely fast and dangerously soon, cap'n!"

The crew had about ten seconds to figure out what was going on. The black thing became bigger quickly, revealing itself as a huge cloud of airborne Heartless. All the dark creatures either brandished swords or flashed dark claws. They were very menacing to sum it all up in a few words, and the majestic pirate ship wasn't built to hold off an attack of darkness. The crew let out screams as they were all defeated easily by the band of Heartless. James shouted in protest, holding his small sailor's knife at the beast. It was futile however, and the Heartless seemed to jeer at his struggling as they ripped out his heart. James looked down to see as dark, bloodless gash on his chest. Then, slowly he fell forward and out of the crow's nest. The ship sank, and took James Mandlind with it.

* * *

"Uhh…"

James pushed himself up onto his knees. He put a hand to his head. It hurt. Pulling it back, he saw a bit of blood staining his fingers. Well, that wasn't anything new. It was almost promised that he'd get hurt out on the high seas. It was odd however, that his chest's wound didn't hurt at all. It had seemed much more serious. He shrugged. He was fine, what more did he need?

Where he was however, was a different story. He seemed to be in some sort of cave. Of how he ended up there he had no idea. Rocks here, puddles there were all lit with dim moonlight. Wherever he was, he didn't seem to be at the bottom of the ocean. That was a nice surprise in a bleak, bleak situation. What wasn't the nicest surprise was that he didn't see a single bit of the crew or the ship. He couldn't tell if the other's had made it out or not, but on the open seas, missing pretty much meant dead. But then again, to people on the shore, he would probably be considered missing.

"Hey there."

James practically jumped out of his rags. Slowly he looked back to see a smallish hooded figure behind him. Scurrying on the ground, he turned around so he was facing it. He stuttered and made random noises, but none of them became comprehensible words. His hand went to his right hip where he kept his knife. It wasn't there. Looking back at the figure before him he stared up with a bit of fear in his eyes. Would it happen again? Was this hooded person in league with that cloud of monsters? And why was he so scared?

The figure pulled off its hood to reveal Mixeka's black hair and dark-blue eyes. She was holding her head as if she was having a crushing headache.

"Trust me; this definitely hurts me more than you."

James didn't quite believe her. He shrunk away as she touched his forehead with a gloved hand. Then, he noticed that nothing was happening and relaxed slightly. The small-ish girl in front of him was now breathing through clinched teeth, as if suffering some sort of pain. As he watched in confusion, a cold feeling came into his skull. Then, it quickly fell into where he guessed his stomach must have been.

Strange memories began flooding into his mind. A pump of the cold thing brought more. A man that James could not guess the age of appeared in the images. Cards and dice of exaggerated size filled the strange battles with blurred figures. Other figures, hooded ones, appeared in separate memories. The only ones he could see the face of were a dark-skinned man and a slender shooter. It went past in a horrible pace, leaving James only to be confused. Then, it all suddenly came to a stop, suspended in his consciousness.

"_Well, I'd say that was a success,"_ said a voice from within. It sounded as if it had just woken up from a good night's sleep, refreshed and slightly amused, "_But it seems the Superior's host is under a great deal of stress._"

James looked around. The girl was collapsed on the cave floor. Crawling cautiously towards her, he realized that she was asleep. James scratched his head, still confused of his situation. He sat down, pondering with his mind that was never really that wonderfully sharp.

"_She has transferred my essence to you. Seems that it is physically strenuous,_" commented the voice in James' head, "_She's done a superb job for a girl her age_."

"Who _are_ you?" asked James finally. He touched the girl's hair, wondering why a small girl would bother to be in a damp cave like this one. She was pretty anyways, not beautiful like Anne, but pretty in a childish sort of way. Maybe it was called innocence, James could not quite think of a word that fit it.

An image of the blonde man floated to the top of his mind, "_The question should be, 'Who am I?' Look for yourself, lad. I'm sure that you'll be at least slightly shocked at your new look. You do seem fresh after all._"

The metal image turned his attention to a puddle close-by. James hesitated for a moment. What was this? Was it some kind of dark magic? He shuddered at the thought. Seafarers who dealt with that sort of devil work were not smiled upon by luck. As far as he knew devil-worshippers sunk like rocks. After another mental nudge, he stepped over the sleeping Mixeka to the puddle. He looked in, and something resembling shock washed over him. The face that stared back on him was not his own. His hair was now a dull brown. The signs of a sailor; the swollen eyes and salt-encrusted hair were nowhere to be found. His skin had become much fairer. The only thing that was untouched seemed to be his eyes. They were the same clear blue. He looked around and saw only the exhausted Mixeka snoozing on the ground. Did she do this when she touched his forehead? No…It couldn't be, it he could only feel her giving him the odd memories and the voice in his head. That only left…

'_If you like, I can give you a quick lecture on Heartless,'_ said the man's voice in his head. He could feel a smirk in the voice, and it didn't comfort him at all, _'And we shall have to do something about your name. Your old one doesn't fit you anymore.'_

* * *

Mixeka woke up, and the first thing she did was stretch her arms and legs. She was right where she remembered falling asleep. It was still damp and dreary. Mixeka imagined that it was this sort of place that Xemnas had crawled out of. At birth. He obviously wasn't normal, and this place seemed perfect for him to just grow out of the stone cave wall. She got a pretty interesting scoff for that one. However, the sun was starting to shine through the cracks in the cave's ceiling, telling her how long she had been asleep. The slimy mold seemed to back out and shrivel from the light, and the walls seemed more blue than black now. It didn't take her long to find the newest member of the Organization. He was sitting patiently on a rock, looking blankly in her direction. She got up, and brushed herself off.

"Hi. Sorry about that. I'm still not really used to this transferring thing-" she trailed off, losing her balance. She was tired. The boy she had transferred memories to stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her up. She smiled thankfully up at him. "Sorry about that," she continued, getting back on her feet again, "My name's Mixeka, I replace Xemnas." She offered her hand.

The new member took it, giving one firm shake, Maxjes, The Dicemaster. I replace Luxord."

* * *

"You're sure about this, right?" asked Maxjes. He held tightly onto the sleeve of the smaller girl's coat. The new Member X looked warily at the black blot of darkness in front of them and gulped. That did not look safe, and it was definitely aligned with the darker of magic. He wouldn't trust it if she didn't. The girl smiled reassuringly.

"Don't worry yourself, Maxy," she whispered, "Just don't be afraid."

She walked into the dark portal before him. A hand remained on his side, beckoning him to follow her lead. He stepped forward timidly, eyeing the black thing to see if it would suddenly close before he could walk in. He stopped, he couldn't bring up the courage to try. Somehow, when his heart had been taken, his memories of how to be brave and courageous had all spilled out along with it. He couldn't remember the feeling of pride and strength as he once did when faced with adventure. He could feel his hands shake, and the blood pumped deafeningly in his ears. He took one step back, then screamed.

* * *

A cliffhanger? I guess. Maxjes is pronounced Mass-Jess.

Reviews will be most appreciated.


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